LES COPAINS DU SAMEDI AU CAFÉ CANADIEN-FRANÇAIS

La Bolduc

So far, at the café, we have heard songs from the voyageurs and from the soirées canadiennes. If you would have asked these people, in their days, what constitutes the essence of French-Canadian identity, they would have said: #1 is to be catholic, #2 is to live in the countryside and #3 is to speak French. Language was not seen as the most important aspect of one’s identity, but that was about to change.

In the 1930s, many things were happening that would have a significant impact on French Canadian songs. Of course, there was the Great Depression, which caused many people to migrate from rural areas to big cities in order to find jobs. Thus the centuries-long isolation came to a brutal end. For all the industrial jobs available, the work language was English, and workers had to learn the vocabulary of the boss while speaking French at home. This new amalgamation of French inherited from the 18th century and English was known as “joual” (this is how “cheval” was pronounced by the working class) and was considered an inferior form of language by the French-Canadian elite (clergy, doctors, lawyers, politicians).

In the same period, women’s right had gain momentum thanks to the right to vote (1916 in Canada, but not until 1940 in Québec). It meant that it was acceptable for women to do what only men could do.

Another important change worth mentioning was the increasing availability of radio sets (first broadcasts were in the early 1920s). In the 1930s, families at home were now listening to all kinds of radio broadcasts, including the news, all kinds of music and praying the rosary a few times a day. This new technology initiated two big social changes. Instead of singing all together with their neighbors, families would now listen to music in their living room, slowly eroding the old value of community at large. Instead of only listening to the traditional songs, French-Canadians were now exposed to a wide variety of musical genres, especially from the United States. In parallel, vinyl records, that started to supersede the phonograph cylinders in the 1910s, were becoming increasingly more diverse and more available. This would help fuel a demand for “professional performances” as opposed to amateurish singing, typical during the “soirées canadiennes”.

La Bolduc (1894-1941) is a singer that embodies all the above social transformations. Mary Rose-Anne Bolduc, born Travers, was a fearless woman who played the violin and composed her own songs. The spelling of her first name is English, since it was common for French Canadians to adopt English first names (like “Wilfrid Laurier”) in those days. La Bolduc would create a band and tour the province. She would find inspiration in traditional Irish songs for her own songs. More importantly, she would sing with the words of the working class, which the critics would qualify as “vulgar”. She would be one of the first artists heard on the radio and she launched a few records. Her most popular song is “La Bastringue” (the word refers to a type of danse), which is, in my opinion, very close to the traditional songs. She also wrote a song about beating up Hitler. Since I can choose only one song, I would like you to listen to “Ça va venir découragez-vous pas” (it will come, don’t loose hope), a song about the hardship endured during the Great Depression.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dI-DdTZJyo

Next week: French Canadian singers going to France